


Try

by sombreset



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: AI!Atem I guess?, Atem passed away a few years back and Seto made a sentient OS system to talk to that resembles him, Jou and Yugi are married, M/M, Modern AU, Seto is sad and doesn't know how to cope with loss whats new, Warning for talk about death and other serious subjects, but it is only a voice this time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-04 13:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16347722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombreset/pseuds/sombreset
Summary: “Do you ever,” Seto considered asking the wrong questions. He wasn’t talking to a human. “Do you think it’s okay to hold onto things you can never have again?”There was a pause, and Seto supposed it was because he was terrible at phrasing questions when he was sad.“Well,” Atem sighed. “Yes, and no. I think, logically, you shouldn’t. To me, it is the same as wishing you were a year younger. Or even, the same person you were fifteen seconds ago. No matter how much money and smarts you have, you can’t fight time. Not a single thing in the world can. So, why pretend to?”





	1. Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Back at it again with another multiple chapter story.  
> I had to make some strange formatting changes, so if anything reads strangely, let me know.  
> Comments make me smile.  
> :-)

It always started to rain when he stepped on the light rail, never beforehand. It’s idiotic he thought, to believe that with such certainty, when it rained in the city nearly every day. The mornings when he walked from the tallest building in the city to the light rail stop during the casual downpour were disregarded every time, in favor of sunshine.  

 

_Why don’t you move somewhere else, then?_

 

He sat down in a nearby vacant seat and put wireless headphones in his ears. Played the most self-pitying music he could find. It started to rain. If it was possible, he would will himself to teleport right to his home office, because everything was finally ready. Every part of him was nervous and excited.

“Seto?”  

The pulling of his earbud away from his head was intrusive, the smile he saw was intrusive, and everyone and everything felt too close.  

A wide grin. “Seto! I’ll be damned. What’re you doing out this late? Hell, what’re you doing out at _all?_ You don’t often do the ‘outside’ thing. _”_  

“Jou,” Seto replied, a small smile was the only kindness he had enough energy to give. An apparent invitation, because Jou sat next to him and bumped his shoulder.

“I had some extra work to do at the office. I just left.”  

Jou shrugged. “That’s fair. But you do realize,” y _es, I do,_ “that we’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like, months now, right?” He laughed. But it was very clearly forced. “You’re all busy now with your new job, we get that. But you can’t be, I don’t know, _that_ busy.”  

“I am _that_ busy.” Seto shifted, because Jou’s shoe was nearly touching his own. “Sorry. Maybe next weekend, or something? I don’t have much-”  

“You know I’m not bugging you because I’m the only one who cares, right?”  

“I know.”  

“Yugi.”  

“I know.”  

“He asks about you all the time. You were best friends for years, you know. He misses you.”  

“I know.”  

Jou sighed. “Clearly, you have issues, or you guys fought, or something. I don’t know.”

“Something like that,” Seto replied.  

“He won’t tell me. Either will you, apparently. But it was years ago, right? I mean, me and Yugi have been together for almost four years.”  

The railcar stopped, and the prerecorded voice Seto had grown so fond of announced his destination. He sat up, and his face did another small smile. “This is my stop.”  

“Hey. Call Yugi sometime, we can all go out for a drink or something.”

“Okay.”

“We haven’t seen you since the wedding party, you know.”  

“I know.”  

“Seriously. Call Yugi, or stop by sometime.”  

“Okay.” Seto stood at the automatic doors and waited for Heaven to open its gates.  

“I wish your words weren’t so empty,” Jou said.  

 _Bye, Jou._ Is what Seto thought to say, but he found more comfort in stepping out of the light rail and into the rain without a word. He was certain that if he looked back, Jou would be giving him the expected look of disappointment.  

He turned around and he saw the back of Jou’s head, his blond hair awkwardly pressed against the window.

“Oh.” Seto put the earbuds back in, and walked to his home.  

He lived in a nice district, the houses were old and small, but they were cherished and close to every essential part of the city. No air conditioning, constant maintenance, a well-kept lawn and stupidly expensive prices. Seto’s home was no different, another cookie-cutter desirable house with maroon paint and off-white trim. There was no need and no room for him to have a car, the public transit did just fine and none of the houses had driveways. Instead, cars rudely stacked the street side parking for miles, suburb couples and visitors trying to find some place to put their vehicle before heading out to the well-renowned eateries and bars.  

Seto thought to leave a note on the windshield of the car that parked in front of his front door. Something like, _hello, please be mindful of the grass when you park, as it is not part of the street nor the sidewalk, and muddy tire marks are unpleasant to look at. Thank you, and have a nice day._

He thought of another note as he unlocked the front door. _Hello, please never park here again. The bars aren’t that great, the food is overpriced, and only talked up for naive tourists to try to be part of the “experience” and blow all their money away. There is no “experience,” because tourists are the only ones who enjoy being here besides spoiled spouses and children. Most of us are too tired from work and all the food is the same, it tastes like the same unhealthy “healthy” shit, and, we aren’t really known for our famous oysters we are way too far from the ocean for that, God, pull out a map sometime._

The door shut behind him and he took off his shoes, one by one, and put them neatly on the shoe rack. He took off his coat, always the right sleeve first and then the left, hung it up.

“Living room lights, on.”  

 _“Okay.”_  

The small house was suddenly bright with color. It was warm, but it was with life. Soft oranges and blues. Yellows. He stepped into the kitchen, opened the fridge. Containers neatly marked, sectioned off and dated. He pulled out some leftover pasta that was intentionally portioned as a meal for that night. He never saw himself as hasty or impatient, but watching the microwave count down numbers in bright LEDs was excruciating.  

The container turned, only shifting slightly when the ceramic plate it turned on was slightly off center. He would fix that later, but now, _damn it,_ fifteen seconds felt like they were mocking him. The food was done, eventually, thank God, and he grabbed the bowl and went upstairs. Quietly, he opened the door to his home office, which starkly contrasted from the softer atmospheres in the rest of his home.  

Papers stacked, blueprints hung up, pencils and pens separated in different holders, an attempt at organization but it there was _so much_ of everything that it all looked like clutter anyways. He set the food aside and logged into his home computer.  

Though his physical office space was crammed with information and drawings, the computer was unmatched with its infinite files, programs, and projects that would be worthy of filling a mansion with just coding notes alone.  

 _It was ready, it was finally ready._  

Of course, he was in charge of creating a lot of OS programs at work, and had received plaque after plaque, raise after raise. But none of it mattered, _none_ of it meant anything more than practice for right _now_ . Even though everything had been ready for a few weeks, it was the finishing touches and the polish that had been completed earlier at work. That, and he put off completion because he was nervous. Many times, he considered booting the project early. But any, _any_ possible error, glitch, or inconsistency would immediately pull him out of the immersion he wanted.  

Seto inhaled one last deep breath, before pulling the last bit of work from his online server and installing it onto his home computer. It was barely anything, only a few minutes of waiting time. He eyed the leftovers. Sat up straight, and watched his computer cursor draw tiny circles around the program icon. Lost, until the pop-up window that he had written the message for himself, told him everything was installed and ready to run.  

A tiny noise was heard, his phone vibrating in his bag. He reached over and looked at the displayed message.  

_“Hey. Jou said he saw you on the train today.”_

Seto unlocked his phone and exited from the messaging app, opened the mobile application he designed to work with this project.  

 _Waiting for response from home application…_ is what it said.  

So, he turned to the computer and opened it, and finally pressed the launch button.  

Everything went exactly as he expected. Seto leaned forward, watched as the golden circle spun in the new pop-up window. He reached in his bag, pulled out one of the earbuds, and waited until the noise he programmed to be the signifier of completion played.  

The circle went away, and in its place, was nothing.  

 _It worked,_ Seto thought. _It worked._  

“Hello?” A voice, _his_ voice, God that familiar sound flooded into his ear and destroyed every part of him that was coherent. And for the first time, Seto thought he might have done a terrible, terrible thing.  


	2. Chained

Panic and absolute guilt busted his windpipe for a few seconds until the voice spoke again.  

“I can hear you breathing, you know.” A laugh, and Seto was nervous when he heard an intake of breath that wasn’t necessary. It certainly was not. It was just for show.

“...Are you okay? This isn’t really the greeting I expected.”  

Seto put in the other earbud so he could hear clearly, and because he didn’t know how to hear anything else in the room. This certainly wasn’t the greeting he wanted to give, either. So he tried again.  

He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat and spoke. “Hi… hi.” He sat up again, crossed his legs. Uncrossed them again because he hit his knee on the underside of the desk. “Sorry. I was just startled.”

A small pause, and Seto was sure that he had already hit a wall in the programming somewhere.  

“Oh, that’s okay. I mean, you must be nervous. You worked really hard on… is it safe to say myself?”

 _Everything was working._  

“Yes. You could say that.”  

“Well. It’s nice to meet you, my name is Atem. But I suppose you already knew that, huh?”

“I did.”  

“And, you gave me pictures for what I look like, too. A whole background. You sure made me an interesting person.”  

 _Don’t hate me._ “Yeah. I figured it would help you have some sort of basis. You’re one of the first self-developing and sentient OS programs, you know.”  

“Yes. There are about 502 of them publicly talked about, and probably tons more that are left off the internet. Strange to think about. Do you think you’ll ever post about me? Seems kind of weird.”  

Seto frowned. “How did you know that? About the other OS programs?”  

A laugh. That artificial breathy noise. “You gave me limited internet permissions, dummy.”  

“Shit,” Seto tried to laugh in response, but it sounded nothing like a happy or human sound. “You’re right. Been alive for less than five minutes, and you’re already calling me a dummy again.”  

“Again?”  

Seto blinked. “Sorry.” He let scenes play back on the dirty reel-to-reel that his brain stashed all his unforgettable memories in. “Sorry.”  

 

 _“Turn around, dummy.”_  

 _Seto did so, smiling and feeling like a child. The blindfold was annoyingly snug against his face, and he began to walk forward._  

 _“Okay,” the voice spoke. So, so God damn familiar. “Okay, now stop.”_  

 _“Okay.”_  

 _Hands untied the blindfold, and the room was dangerously bright with life._  

 _He was briefly met with a smirk, eyes slightly crinkled with joy._  

_A comfortable face, he had touched it so many times. Stared at it when they sat across from each other over coffee, in the break room, in their bedroom._

_“Hi, Atem,” Seto said. Smiled. “I assume you planned a surprise birthday party, but if you wanted to just hang out, you could have said so.”_  

 _Atem stepped aside, and Seto caught a small glimpse of his orange shirt._  

He tried to not be pulled from the memory, because he was thinking about that shirt. How Atem used to wear it, how he had bought it at that second-hand store in November, and it lived in the dresser. How it used to not be in a box, never to be taken back out unless someone was reminiscing.   

_In front of him now, God, he couldn’t believe his eyes. His younger brother who had been away studying abroad for college, was standing there. Long, thick hair pulled back into the purple ponytail he always kept with him. Seto was surprised it hadn’t been lost yet, it had been a few years since he had seen him after all. His eyes were lively, and his laugh was genuine when he ran forward and hugged Seto tightly._

_“Mokuba?” He let out a breathy chuckle and embraced him with more fondness than he ever had in the past. He missed him. “Mokuba, oh my God! How did you get here, I thought you weren’t allowed to take vacation leave yet, I, how did you even get here? Traveling is expensive. I know you can’t-”_

_“Shush.” Mokuba pulled back from the hug and stood by Atem, who smiled with pride in that silly comical way that he always did. “Atem helped. He paid for half of it. I wanted to come down initially, but I couldn’t find the courage to ask you for the financial help.”_

_Seto furrowed his eyebrows. “Atem, he’s my brother. I could’ve paid for all of it. You didn’t have to do that.”_  

 _Atem turned, went to grab a drink from the punchbowl that Seto hadn’t even recognized was there until right then. And it was so, so nostalgic. Halloween parties, and mirrors. “Consider it my birthday gift to you. What’s a birthday without the whole family, eh?”_  

 _Seto wanted to protest, but he held his tongue and decided to accept kindness for once. “Thank you.”_  

 _“Don’t cry. Today is the one day you should say ‘fuck it, I want to feel joy.’”_  

 

“Are you crying?”  

Seto opened his eyes to the computer screen and stared at the background. Scenery from that one trip to Scotland. He wiped the side of his cheek with the backside of his hand. “A little.”  

There was a brief pause, and Seto considered shutting down the program.  

“...Why?”  

The food Seto planned on eating had gone cold, and it was starting to get dark out.  

“Do you ever,” Seto considered asking the wrong questions. He wasn’t talking to a human. “Do you think it’s normal to hold onto things you can never have again?”  

Another pause, and Seto supposed it was because he was terrible at phrasing questions when he was sad.  

“Well,” Atem sighed. “Yes, and no. I think, logically, you shouldn’t. To me, it is the same as wishing you were a year younger. Or even, the same person you were fifteen seconds ago. No matter how much money and smarts you have, you can’t fight time. Not a single thing in the world can. So, why pretend to?”  

Seto nodded, even though he knew the program couldn’t see his gesture of affirmation.  

“I don’t know. At least, that is what I believe,” Atem said. “I think it’s irrational, but it’s believable and understandable. A lot of things people do could be deemed wrong or counterproductive, but that doesn’t stop them. It’s just… Natural. Illogical, and natural.”  

“Yeah,” Seto replied quietly. He stared at the desk. He needed to clean the coffee stain that had been near the keyboard for weeks.  

“Is that weird? I know I’m not, I don’t know, the same as you. So it’s a little difficult for me to understand stuff that can’t be explained with certain reasoning. But I can try.”

“No, you’re fine.” Seto leaned over and folded his arms on the desk. He rested his head there, and closed his eyes. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? You’ve only been here for a few minutes. Yet, I feel like we’ve been talking for a very long time.”  

“Yeah.” A laugh. “I guess I can understand that. But primarily, I’ve been thinking about something else. Pondering, I suppose, over every possible reason as to why you bothered making me in the first place.”

“Why is that?” Seto muttered, tired, and spent.  

“...Because it seems like talking to me is only making you sad. Or are you always sad?” A chuckle, a damn near close imitation to one he had heard years before. “C’mon. Cheer up. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

Seto drew his arms closer and rested his head more comfortably. He was sure the desk chair would be his bed tonight.

“Yes. I am.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Seto spoke into his arm, wished that someone, _God,_ that someone was there to wrap a blanket around his shoulders. But not anyone, no.  “What do you want to be?”

A pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Seto thought of Atem’s face. Little memories. “I…”

Atem used to walk in front of him, sometimes, just so Seto would have to stop and prevent himself from stumbling over the smaller human.

The festivals. Atem turning around, two drinks in his hand. He’d take a sip of Seto’s drink, a knowing smirk, before handing it to him.

That orange hair clip he used sometimes to pull back those unruly blonde bangs that curled into his face.

Parties. The Halloween party.

 

_Seto turned the corner, red plastic cup in his hand and fake plastic teeth in his mouth. A stupid vampire costume he wore every year because it worked and he was too lazy to wear anything else._

_“What’re you supposed to be?” He asked a stranger near the punchbowl._

_The stranger turned, he was wearing a soft orange sweater with tiny bats near his left shoulder. His hair was wild, and his bangs were curled. But a mask adorned his face that covered all of his features. It was a round reflective dome shape, and Seto could see himself in it. His figure was warped, everything distorted and unclear._

_“I’m free,” the stranger said._

 

Seto sighed. Pulled his arms together tighter. He was getting old.

 

_“Ah,” the stranger sighed, but the noise was muffled by the mask. The two had been talking quietly around the others, dancing a little, hands shifting subtly. Fingers reaching, touching sides, hips against hips. Eventually they decided, fuck it, it was a Halloween party and they both wanted to feel something more from one another._

_Seto’s hands drifted under the stranger’s sweater, feeling bones, and he tried to suppress the shaky breaths he wanted to make. He was nervous, never before had he touched anyone like this, been with anyone like this. He was way too quiet and occupied for anything resembling a relationship or intimacy._

_But this man intrigued him, enticed him without a face._

_“Can I please,” Seto breathed, shaky fingers touching the string attached to the mask. “I want to know.” A small laugh. “I want to see you, mystery man.”_

_“Well,” a sigh, “that ruins my costume, now doesn’t it?”_

_“A costume that I still don’t understand.” Seto’s hands slowed, and he started to become frustrated. He just wanted to know._

_“I’m an unknown force.” The stranger’s arms lifted, and his hands interlocked behind Seto’s neck. “I’m pleasing human nature, I’m reflecting it, and I’m hiding from it. What am I?”_

_Seto paused. Thought. Thought harder when it resulted in nothing. “I… I have no idea.” His hands lowered, rested on the man’s shoulders._

_“Close your eyes,” the stranger said._

_Seto did. And he heard rustling, a sound he knew to be the stranger removing the mask. Suddenly, there was a warmth near his ear, and a soft breath._

 

_The stranger’s voice was heard with absolute clarity._

_“I’m the other side of the mirror,” the hands shifted. One of them held Seto’s cheek, softly. “I’m the water that hides beneath ripples and reflections, and the strangers beyond the windows of every bus and every train. The world beyond yourself, and I’m the freedom when you’re not limited by your own two cold and restricting eyes staring back into your squishy soul.”_

_He dared to open his eyes, and pulled the stranger back a few inches so he could see his face._

 

_Extraordinary._

 

_The stranger had the most bizarre hair, he knew this. Blonde bangs that curled and waved like ocean currents, the rest of it was a hue of maroon so dark that it sometimes looked black. Perfectly shaped lips, and an unbelievably clear complexion. Not a single bit of acne anywhere, no scars, no nothing._

_But that wasn’t where Seto was lost, no, it was his eyes._

_Even in the darkness of the guest bedroom, light seeping from the cracks in the doorway, he could see the fantastic red color that surrounded the stranger’s pupils. Bright towards the center and darkening towards the edges. And it was the expression he carried, the shape of his eyes, his eyelashes and the half-lidded stare; the eyeliner that was accented with gold and the way his soul knew all of it and cast everything that he was back into Seto’s own eyes. It was that power that drove Seto’s lips towards the stranger’s, and the stranger held him in return._

 

 


End file.
